Hot off their blockbuster acquisition of LucasFilm, Disney logs another major win in this week’s box office.
As you may have guessed, Disney Animation Studios’ Wreck-It Ralph (read our review) took the top spot this week with $49 million. Operating off a reported budget of around $135 million, the film, which features the voices of John C. Reilly and Sarah Silverman, still has a long way to go before generating profit, but it should be counted as a major success for Disney regardless.
With its opening weekend tally, Wreck-It Ralph surpasses Tangled‘s opening weekend ($48 million) for the number 1 spot among Disney Animation Studios (that means non-Pixar) releases. Even though Ralph isn’t based on any particular video game, gamers should count this as a victory for video game/movie collaborations.
Robert Zemeckis’ return to live-action filmmaking Flight (read our review) comes in at number 2 this weekend with $25 million. While Zemeckis was known to deliver his fair share of hits before he began his motion capture obsession, Flight was a little bit of a question mark considering its unconventional, and arguably difficult, subject matter.
Thankfully, Zemeckis had the star power of Denzel Washington on his side to help the film, which cost $31 million to make, post a very solid opening weekend tally.
Ben Affleck’s Argo continues its box office dominance and is this weekend’s number 3 film with $10 million, bringing its domestic total up to $75 million. Strong word of mouth and a very high audience retention percentage have been keeping this Oscar-bound film going, and we wouldn’t be surprised to see it remain in the top 10 for at least the next few weeks.
This week’s only other major opening, The Man with the Iron Fists (read our review), comes in at number 4 with $8 million. Though this is former Wu Tang Clan member RZA’s directorial debut, he received considerable help from Quentin Tarantino and Eli Roth for this eclectic martial arts mash-up.
Luckily the film only cost $15 million to make so it should be able to, at the very least, break even when all is said and done. Universal was pretty high on the very genre-focused project from the get-go, but it’s too early to tell how they will feel about this opening weekend performance, and more importantly whether this is the beginning or the end of RZA’s directorial career.
Taken 2 jumped up a spot from last week and comes in at number 5 with $6 million. Liam Neeson’s karate chopping, grenade-tossing, train smashing, trek through Istanbul continues to post strong numbers and is at $125 million to-date. The film is now only $20 million away from surpassing its predecessor’s domestic total.
The Wachowski Siblings and Tom Tykwer’s Cloud Atlas fell way down this week to the number 6 spot with $5 million. Now at only $18 million to-date, the ambitious film looks to be a major disappointment for Warner Bros., despite serious star power from Tom Hanks and Halle Berry.
Hotel Transylvania is the number 7 movie this weekend with $4.5 million. Now that Wreck-It Ralph is available for families, the Adam Sandler-voiced, animated film seems to have surrendered its spot in the box office limelight. It did, however, rake in an astounding $137 million in the process.
Coming in at number 8 is Paranormal Activity 4 with $4.3 million. Though PA4 is only in its third weekend, its $49 million total to-date firmly cements this most recent entry in the lucrative franchise’s place as the weakest performer.
Here Comes the Boom, the Kevin James MMA comedy that has spent four weeks in the top 10 despite opening at number 5, is the number 9 film with $3.6 million. Boom’s domestic total to-date of $35 million is nowhere close to previous Kevin James vehicles Paul Blart: Mall Cop ($163 million) and Zookeeper ($81 million), but its strong performance, despite little-to-no marketing, should keep the partnership between Sony – who released all three films – and James alive.
And finally, rounding out the top 10, is Silent Hill: Revelation 3D with $3.3 million. We noted last week that Open Road Films was going to have a hard time finding an audience for this unwarranted sequel, and a domestic total to-date of only $13 million (off a budget of $20 million) suggests we were right. While Wreck-It Ralph proves that video games and movies can commingle, Silent Hill 2 suggests otherwise.
Though the film doesn’t open until next weekend in the States, we wanted to provide an update on Skyfall‘s worldwide box office, which is now up to $287 million. The 23rd film in James Bond franchise continues to break box office records across the globe, and is performing nearly 80% better than both Quantum of Solace and Casino Royale in international markets. Will this be the biggest opening weekend for agent 007 yet?
